The Forgotten Founder in Our Midst
While history remembers Frances Willard, an Ellensburg resident claims she laid the groundwork for the national temperance movement.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Many persons have been speaking of Miss Frances Willard as the founder of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union. The founder of the W. C. T. U. resides in this city. Mrs. McClellan Brown was instrumental in calling the first convention, inaugurating the movement in Columbus in February 1874. In August following, she went to the Chautauqua assembly with a full plan of organization, which she had incorporated by a committee from various states present at that assembly. By her correspondence, the first convention was called at Cleveland in November 1874, where Miss Willard first entered the work and was made secretary of the convention. Mrs. Brown at that time declined the nomination for the presidency. Mrs. Anna Wittenmyer, of Philadelphia, was president for five years preceding Miss Willard's succession to the presidency in 1879. Mrs. Brown still holds the convention's original plan of work of the W. C. T. U., dated January 12, 1875, bearing the signature of Librarian Spofford and the official seal.
“The founder of the W. C. T. U. resides in this city.”
This piece highlights how historical narratives are often consolidated around a single iconic figure, obscuring the complex webs of women who did the actual institutional building. Today, we still grapple with how we attribute labor and leadership within social movements.
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